Double-down on iPad Rumor

Unless there's a supreme head-fake in the works, don't count on any major Tablet announcements on 09/09/09. Despite that, though, the rumors persist and in this case, multiply to the point that at least one person is claiming that there's not just one iPad in the works, but two models of different sizes.

While this idea is in tune with other Apple offerings such as the different capacities for the iPod and iPhone, Richard Doherty, a director at Envisioneering Group, a market research firm, claims in a recent Business Week article that two prototypes of the iPad are in the mix and merely await the say-so of Steve Jobs.

Doherty claims that there is a smaller, six-inch screen version, something like a bigger version of the iPod or iPhone in the mix and an even larger version as well. This goes against both one claim that Apple has a plan for a ten-inch screen tablet, as well as confirmed reports of ten-inch touch screens being ordered by Apple.

While these ten inch screens could be the purported larger version, there haven't been any confirmed reports of the smaller sized touch screens shipping anywhere.

From a market perspective, two sizes does make a great deal of sense, offering something pocket-portable that hits the gaming market and a bigger tablet that can take on the e-reader market of the Kindle while both continue to offer all the great App Store apps as well as Mac computer reliability. Of course, the hotter the rumor mill churns, the better the rumors sound, the greater the disappointment the longer nothing happens.

At this stage, Apple almost has to release a tablet of some kind. If not to slake the rumors, then to scoop the other handheld manufacturers who, urged on by the constant drum beat of Mac rumors, rush to beat Cupertino to the punch.